Co-sponsored by the Center for Research, Regional
Education and Outreach (CRREO) at SUNY New Paltz,
Assemblymember Kevin Cahill and
The Thomas and Corinne Nyquist Foundation

Moderated by Susan Barnett

UlsterCorps’ Sixth Annual Service Summit will be held on Wednesday, April 29th, 2015 from 8:30am-12pm at the MPR, Student Union Building, SUNY New Paltz. The Service Summit will bring together college and high school students and community leaders from the nonprofit, business, higher education and governmental sectors to address the work and value of youth volunteerism in Ulster County.

The program will include presentations by high school and college-age youth, service learning coordinators, and agency representatives who have effectively engaged young people in volunteering. The Summit is being designed to provide a platform for youth to express their interests in volunteering, to report out on their fields of volunteer service, and to present the challenges they face in seeking and obtaining volunteer opportunities. As always it will feature roundtable discussions giving all attendees an opportunity to participate and network.

The Summit, which is free to participants, is part of the on-going work of UlsterCorps to deepen the knowledge about volunteerism and to find ways to strengthen a culture of service and collaboration in Ulster County. A locally-sourced, healthy breakfast will be available to participants.

The Summit featured an overview of current Emergency Response and Recovery Volunteer Workforce capacity and needs by Art Snyder, Ulster County Office of Emergency Management, and Michael Raphael, American Red Cross of Northeastern New York. It was followed by a panel and roundtable discussions on six topics which had been identified as priorities by a survey and poll we conducted earlier this year: Disaster Mental Health, Volunteer Reception Center & Virtual VRC, Access to Emergency Services, Community Animal Response Team, Community Communications Networks, Civilian Emergency Response Corps.

Working groups are developing around each of these topics.
If you would like to be involved, please contact volunteer@ulstercorps.org or call 845.481.0331.

Ulster BOCES New Visions Health Career Explorations students presenting their research in the Youth Volunteerism Panel, UlsterCorps Service Summit 2012, moderated by Susan Barnett. photo: Stephen Gilman